1929-1941 - The Gulags

• By 1929, the prisons of the USSR were full but more and more people were arrested and sentenced to prison.
• In order to deal with the situation of rising prisoners, Yagoda as Deputy Chairman of the OGPU suggested a massive expansion of the labour camp system which had first been developed by Lenin.
• Hundreds of new gulags were to be built in remote areas of the USSR such as Siberia where the prisoners could be used as forced labour to exploit the natural resources.
• By 1934, there were over a million prisoners in the gulags.